At one time, this museum (the first whole collection to be donated in 1963) was considered the beginning of a future Museo de la Ciudad (city museum). This brochure, written for the official opening in 1970 (revised in 1980), contains a biographical sketch of Venezuelan artist Raúl Santana (1893-1966), a member of the Círculo de Bellas Artes (1912-17) generaton, who along with Leoncio Martínez, was solely focused on caricatures, and costumbrist sculpture. In some respects he was inspired by the work of French artist Honorato Daumier. The biographical sketch (by an anonymous author) offers interesting information on the Santana’s education and travels, as well as a moving profile of Venezuelan Mario Briceño-Iragorry [1897-1958], at a time when his collection was still housed in his own residence (1952). This singular collection includes belongings, sets, common items, customs and certain historical objects of the Venezuelan tradition, which have on the whole disappeared. Both of these texts —presented here together with photographs of various works by Santana— are of interest because they enrich our understanding of Venezuelan life (at the end of the XIX and first half of the XX centuries). It is an artistic testament to an old colonial practice (of Neapolitan origin): to represent and record the life of the people through figurines or sculpture, as is done with mangers, adding fine details in miniature.
The Museo Criollo Raúl Santana is part of the Museo Caracas, along with other collections held by the Consejo Municipal del Distrito Federal (today the Distrito Metropolitano); among them, the archaeological collection of Vicente Marcano Echenique; the [collection of] Venezuelan paintings (with numerous works by Venezuelan artist Emilio Boggio); the maquettes of colonial Caracas and 1930s Caracas, collected by the architect Neumann; as well as historical pieces such as the Mazas del Cabildo [ceremonial maces of the town council] and the Estandarte de Pizarro [Pizarro’s standard] presented to Mariscal [Marshall] Sucre by the local Cusco government and by the Liberator Simón Bolívar to the city of Caracas. The museum was the subject of a documentary (1973) by Spanish-Venezuelan filmmaker Manuel de Pedro.